


Tease Crossed, Eyes Dotted With A Little Heart

by Elle Gray (LGray)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Auror Lisa Turpin, Awkward Conversations, Banter, Bisexual Draco Malfoy, Bisexual Harry Potter, Casual Sex, Coffee, Curse Breaker Cho Chang, Curse Breaker Draco Malfoy, Curse Breaking, HP Kinkfest 2019, Hangover, Kissing, Light Angst, Lube, M/M, Meddling Friends, Mentions of Sex, Mild Sexual Harrassment, Mild breath play, Mild explorations of dominance, Miscommunication, POV Draco Malfoy, POV First Person, Pining, Public teasing, Scotland, Shetland Island, Shit communication, Switching, Wandless Magic, an explosion, showering together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 00:12:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17949869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LGray/pseuds/Elle%20Gray
Summary: Draco's a curse-breaker, Harry's an Auror, and they're... something? Maybe? It depends. Harry definitely wants to get laid, Draco wants to follow procedure, and their work wives just want them to stop hiding from the truth.All persons introduced, Robards went on (and on) with the briefing. We learned more about the history of the house, the island, Muggle drug manufacturing, and the structural issues that would limit our speed and ease of access. More importantly, we learned about what was down there. Less important, but more difficult to ignore, I learned what it looks like when Harry Potter stares at me while fellating a fucking pen.





	Tease Crossed, Eyes Dotted With A Little Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the prompt: Public Tease. 
> 
> BIXGIRL. This is all your fault. I swear on all that is holy this was going to be ONE SCENE and then we had that conversation about the thing, and I had to... like... make it bigger. Eight inches bigger.
> 
> Also to blame/thank profusely (in alphabetical order): Lettersbyelise, RuArcher, Quicksilvermaid, Tepre. And you, other friend, you know who you are.
> 
> Other humans:  
> Atelerix: you left me 10 comments on a fic that's only 7 chapters long. I said I'd name a character after you one day. I'm really sorry he ended up being a total asshole, this is obviously no reflection on you. It's entirely down to the fact that Draco can only get along with 4 people at a time.  
> Geralynn: I don't know who Philip is, but I swear I didn't kill him in this. I know it looks like it, but he's fine.  
> Maire Gen (bush fairy): Enjoy your new and exciting career ;)

It's hideously early when the message comes. It's still dark for one — never a good sign. Last night had hardly concluded at a reasonable time, so I've been asleep for all of a couple hours before that fucking owl of Robards' smacks itself into my window. I have half a mind to just ignore it, but I know it's him and there's no sense in aggravating your employers, even if they're only occasional ones. The meagre reputation I have of being good at my job (if not at life choices) isn't to be squandered. Not after it took so long to shake off my dear father's mantle of idiotic decision-making and poor luck with people returning from the dead to fuck with everything. And that goes for the Dark Lord and Potter both.

 

Potter. Fuck. _Again_. There's a lesson — don't drink gin under the influence of a man in a waistcoat, no matter how stupidly attractive you find him. And how many times you’ve already gone home with him. It's never going to be worth it. And _oh_ the hangover. I feel my eyeballs burn to ash as I draw back the bedroom curtain.

 

The owl has an envelope, another bad sign — envelopes mean Serious Orders — and he fucking waits for a reply, doesn't he? With his smug non-hungover feathery face and no desperate need for a piss clouding his judgement… I guess I do it to myself in the end. I don't even open the envelope. I just grab a card off my desk and write _OK_ on it. The owl is out of sight before I even empty my bladder and I have no chance to call it back once I find out what's inside. 

 

The MLE office is a clusterfuck of over-tired red-robed Aurors and assorted sleepy agitated fuckers, like myself — consultants — who've just been woken up and have poured themselves into their clothes without even the chance for a cup of tea. Though, things as they are, a coffee sounds like a far better idea. What doesn't seem like a good idea, is being in the MLE office on what looks to be a Big Fucking Deal of a job mere hours after having their Golden Boy fuck me into the wall of his bedroom, and not even having had a chance to shower. Damn my own lack of self-preservation on this, because realistically there's a decent chance he's going to get called in too. Even if we aren't realistic and we calculate based on my own experience of the world, there’s a 205% chance I'm getting fucked again really soon. I can't even go the pub without falling on him, there's almost no chance I can manage to not drool on his unfairly sexy uniform on two hours of sleep. Not after last night. This morning. Both of those things. Any of the things. What am I even doing?

 

Curse-breaking always had the allure of danger, but I never thought it'd be this sort — I expected dragons and explosions and near-death by evil artifacts, not the chest-crushing affection and softness Harry brings out in me. I don't even feel like myself when I'm with him. I'm a fawning little fanboy, supplicant and acquiescent and desperate for his approval and attention. And permission to unbutton that infernal uniform he's so firmly strapped into. And maybe one day, hopefully, permission to fuck him.

 

I don't think I'd have let this go on so long — don't even think I'd have _wanted_ it to go on this long — if I'd ever just been able to shag him properly and move on. But he's held it over me for months now, the unattainable goal of dominating his arse ‘til he weeps, and I can't help but wonder every so often if I’m being played. Especially after last night. I'm sure he performed some sort of magic on me, except he's Harry Fucking Potter and he wouldn't do something so underhanded as to coerce someone into bottoming, so I'm lost as to why I did it. At least he was gentle, I can only just feel it, and then only if I wriggle. 

 

'Latte,' Chang says as she holds a paper cup under my nose. It's medium blue — Caffe Nero, which I hate — but it smells divine even if their food is criminally overpriced and their staff are only ever one brain cell above your average labrador retriever. 

'Thanks,' I say as she sits (nay, falls) into the seat beside me. 'Hard night?' She'd been at the pub too, last night, that's just how Fridays are in London, with so many of our school cohorts recruited into the Ministry (or contracted to them like we are) after the war — especially in law enforcement and related fields. The ranks were depleted, so the Ministry turned up in the first week of eighth year and campaigned for us without mercy. 

 

Curse-breaking wouldn't have been an option otherwise, not for me. I guess they were desperate. It all worked in their favour, of course. I'm better with the dark stuff, I've seen more of it, have an instinct for its intent, its depth. Those, like Chang, who grew up in nice, normal households without cursed objects strewn about the place, have far less of an idea what might be out to get them. No sense of doom. Great partners though, they tend to see the good, whereas I've been brought up to find the bad, to know it and understand it before anyone else notices it's there. Curse-breaking makes sense for me. 

 

'I'm so fucking hungover I could cry,' she whispers into the fragrant steam of her own coffee. Her accent is still strong, still curls around my senses like an affectionate cat, rubbing it's little head and purring. I love it when she talks. 'I didn't get home ‘til half an hour ago.'

I _hmm_ noncommittally. There's no need to volunteer information about my own night. 'Who?' is all I ask.

'Who do you think?' she asks, and she's mildly offended if her tired scowl is anything to go by. 'It's not like I'm slutting myself around. And even if I was, you can hardly talk. Saw you leave with Harry again.' She sips her coffee and sighs the sigh of the uncaffeinated.

'Where did you see us?' We're always very careful not to be noticed, his inner circle has a habit of being a bit meddlesome and we're sure they wouldn't like this. At least, I'm sure and so far he's known better than to argue.

'You walked past on Diagon,' she says. 'I was in the shop with-' she pauses, sighs and shrugs. 'Well. You know who.'

'Did they see?'

'No, the girl at the counter had massive tits so he was a bit distracted.'

'You know you deserve better, right?' I tell her this every time.

'Well then hurry the fuck up and give 'better' my details so we can run off into the sunset already. Otherwise I'm stuck with that arsehole forever.'

'You're not stuck with him. If you managed to ever not go home hanging off his dick you might have a chance of gaining someone else's attention.'

'You're one to talk.'

'I don't go home hanging off his dick.'

'No.' She sips her coffee again. 'You go home holding his hand. That's way worse.'

'How is it worse?'

'It means you like him,' she says, pausing. 'And he's letting you.'

 

***

 

Harry turns up just after I've managed to stop myself from flinging my eyes at the door every time anyone walks in or out, so at least he doesn’t see me giving a shit. I know it’s him though, there's a cadence to his steps that no one else has. Part warrior (and it sickens me to even call him that) in his broad-shouldered stance, and part frightened child with the lightness of his step. I wonder if we have that half in common. Our office girl says I'm too quiet when I walk. She's a baby, barely out of Hogwarts, so of course she has no fucking clue why that might be. She doesn't know much about my former "flatmate". See, that's funny in two ways, because he lived with us and because the fucker had no nose. _Flat_ mate. I kill me. But only because he never managed to. Bless my dear mother and her fierce use of maternal ire to protect me. Shame she hadn't used it on dear old dad before she had to use it on Wizard Hitler. Life might've been easier without that brief interlude of utter bullshit.

Pure-bloods, though. Obsessed with old values. Divorce? No, please just be miserable forever and cheat discreetly if you must. There's no actual value in any of the posturing, traditionalism, or displays of family solidarity. Idiots. They probably wouldn't approve of me consorting with Potter either. Bigots, the lot of them. Not our Pansy though. We learned our parents' lesson: don't be unconscionable dicks. I don't know why that was so hard for our forefathers. Maybe if they'd stopped guzzling fucking brandy for a second and looked around. Twenty-eight families interbreeding for a few hundred years isn't enough genetic diversity to produce a reliably sane demographic. I shan't make the same mistake. Pans and I — and Blaise because he does so hate to be left out of things — have a pact. Marry outside the twenty-eight. No matter what. It's not like it’s going to be hard, we know everyone in it and they're all twats. Even us at times. 

 

Blaise used his extraordinary apathy to avoid making poor decisions in the war, but Pansy is a hot-headed little scaredy-cat and she's always been ready to throw someone else under the bus to save herself. I do hope she learned that lesson; it was a hard one. She claims to have repented, and actually apologised to His Saviourship, but I don't know if she's lying — it's not like I ask him anything more complicated than 'your place or mine?'. (It's always his.) I don't even ask anymore to be honest. It means I can escape before dawn anyway. He sleeps like the dead (and he was once, he told me) so if it were the other way round I'd probably have to make him breakfast and I don't even like to cook for myself, so. 

 

'Your boyfriend's here,' Chang hisses at me from behind her paper cup. 

'You went out with him, not me,' I point out. She likes to forget that. Forget that the first time Harry kissed her, she cried. That their first date was a disaster, and she acted appallingly and still feels stupid about it on nights she can't sleep. I like to remind her.

'Shall I call him your _lover_ then?' she glares. I note the change in volume and wonder if she'd really do it.

'Go on, then,' I say. 'I dare you. Maybe he'll hear you and we can go on a nice double date to Madam Puddifoot's. You can bring—'

'Shut up.' She smacks my arm and I know I'm safe again. 'And get me a cup of tea, the trolley's here.'

 

She fetched me coffee without being asked, so I cannot, in good conscience, deny her. She knows this. She also knows that getting up and going over to the tea trolley, with its half-size ministry cups and saucers, and charmed EverHot pot of bitter swill that counts for tea around here, will take me closer to Harry. He's been waylaid, of course, barely made it five steps in the door without being accosted by sycophants. They're not even all his subordinates. Aside from Robards, who is an aloof boulder among mere pebbles of men, Harry is pandered to almost constantly. I happen to know he hates it, and would never accept promotion out from under Robards, since it would mean working for someone who thought he was truly deserving of all the adoring shit they pile on him. I often wonder if that's why he takes me home — because I'm not like them. I have the capacity to actually hide the fact I’m a fawning, supplicant puddle when he looks at me the way he is now — like he can remember what I look like under my robes, and he likes that better. He catches my eye for a second as his gaze skates up my chest and over my face, carefully neutral, polite. Innocent. Then I see him smirk, and drop his attention to my mouth, then my belt, and then his eyes slink away. All this, over the shoulder of the International Incident Coordinator. Nothing if not bold.

 

I keep him in my periphery as I make my two cups of tea. His attention flits from one person to another as he's greeted and shoulder-clapped so it's easy enough to avoid making eye contact again, though I don't know why I've decided to. Everyone here knows everyone here. It's not unheard of for he and I to converse. Still, out of the corner of my eye, I don't see him look this way again. Maybe, like me, he's afraid that the hungry, just-fucked feeling won't have quite worn off yet. 

 

He's showered though, or at least his hair is wet, dripping into the hood of his crimson robes. It bothers me for some reason, but probably doesn't bear thinking about. It'll be an embarrassing reason, like, _why did he want to wash my scent off?_ Or _did he feel dirty after he fucked me?_ Or _I wish we'd showered together…_ There is, of course, the hope that maybe it only bugs me because _how hard is it to employ a drying charm, Potter, you lazy bastard?_ Unlikely, though, really, that it's anything so rational. I should stop going home with him. _Should_ , being the operative. I can tell you now it's not going to happen that way. I barely even have a choice.

 

It's just that… every time I see him — be it pub night for someone or other’s birthday or a Ministry ball — he never just ignores me. I'm like a scab he keeps picking at. A guilty pleasure he can't deny himself. I'm that extra cup of tea before bed, that one last chapter of a good book before you go to sleep. Maybe it's less pure than that. Maybe I'm a furtive wank before getting up in the morning, one more pointless fantasy in which this doesn't end in explosions and crippling sadness.

 

I retreat with tea to the relative safety that Potter's ex-girlfriend offers, and notice she's managed to engage one of today’s curse-breaking team in conversation, and seems to be somewhat (uncharacteristically) enthused about it. Alphie is very good at his job, but _good lord_ is he an awkward man. He's like social spattergroit, infecting every major interaction with an off-kilter sense of discomfort and making me want desperately to be far away everytime I’m alone with him.

'Draco,' Chang says, and there's a hint of awe and urgency in her voice. 'Carlisle's in St Mungo's.'

'Oh?' I suppress the thrill of success this sparks in my abdomen. Valerie Carlisle is a competent curse-breaker but a horrific boss with no sense of decorum, and the only thing standing in my way from being team leader. Part of me hopes she's dead. 'Whatever happened?' I have to ask. It's polite, but I can guess. We all could.

'Ran into a flame-throwing hex last night, down in Hove,' Bert explains, leaning around Alphie's comprehensively potato-like form. 'Tried to get young Horsleigh to go in without letting the Stray Magic Unit technicians go through first — she flat out refused, as she should,' he nodded sagely. 'Carlisle got in a snit and went in herself. Lasted 17 seconds before she set something off. Got hardly any skin on her right side now.'

'I don't really like her,' Chang admits. 'But that's so horrible I almost wish it hadn't happened.'

'Almost?'

'She changed the biscuits in the tea room to fucking Dundees, she can take what comes to her.'

'Daily Prophet exclusive!' I mock. 'Curse-breaker dies over lack of Jammy Dodgers.' 

'That makes you in charge, wee Malfoy,' Bert points a grizzled finger at me. 'Best not fuck it up, or I'll have to come out of retirement and show you how it's done.'

'Don't you worry, Bert,’ Chang soothes. ‘Draco loves rules. He'd go to bed with the law if he could,' she smirks at me and I'm too busy trying not to burst into flames to think of a clever response. It's the danger of Ravenclaws, really, the _wit beyond measure_. Fortunately she uses her powers for good most of the time.

 

They call us to order then, and explain the situation. Muggle authorities were called to a house fire in Scotland, someone had been cooking meth. The house was unsalvageable; burnt to the ground. When the fire specialists arrived, one of them fell through the floor into a boarded up cellar, which turned out to be home to a cache of artefacts from whatever Dark Wizards had owned the property previously. Cue one highly-educated pyrotechnician suddenly sporting scales instead of skin, and we got called in. The cavalry. The unslept. The uncaffeinated and judgemental.

 

They've gotten the single most ridiculous portkey — just one for the whole group of us, and I can't help but wonder if this is some sort of cost-cutting measure ordered from the higher-ups. A length of stiff, manky, sea-smelling rope, as thick as my wrist and rough to the touch. And we're expected to stand around it and somehow land in a stately line and not a pile of party-worn, over-tired drudges, plucked out of bed at the earliest hint of dawn. And if Potter's here to see it, I'm almost certain to fall over. 

 

Chang deposits our tea things (and empty coffee cups) on the trolley and us curse-breakers cluster at the opposite end of the rope to the Aurors, patting our pockets to check our supplies are still there and making certain our wands (and extra emergency wands) are secure. 'Keying in somewhere strange and landing badly enough to damage your main wand is common enough and potentially deadly. You don’t want to find yourself with your foot on the two halves of your only way out of there in a hurry. It isn't a mistake to make twice. Or once, if you have the sense to listen to Bert (which I do). We all carry two.

 

I purposely face away from Potter, putting him out of my mind. Chang and I speculate what we might come across today, based on the estimated date of cache-internment and the handful of times the property has changed ownership in the last 50 years. We think pre-first war with he who must not receive capital letters, but ultimately, our actual assessment will depend on getting there and seeing it. Nonetheless, the conversation is diverting enough and I'm alarmed when I feel my shoulder suddenly warmed by the pressure of another body.

 

'Hi,' he says, leaning around me to smile at Chang — my current partner and his ex-girlfriend. So much for her presence keeping him at bay.

'Hi Harry,' is all she says, and still, in it I hear everything she's holding back. Even the polite smile she gives him is frosted with mockery for me.

 

They interrupt then, thankfully, and someone levitates The Mankiest Portkey in the World to hip-height and instructs us to 'take the strain' with an over-enthusiastic chuckle at their own gormless attempt at humour. Chang is still smirking (she knows too much).

 

I feel a light touch against my skin, and react instinctively, looking down at my left hand where my fingers are wrapped loosely around the rope. Directly behind my own grip, needlessly close, is Harry's tanned fist, looking for all it's worth like he's languidly wanking the rope, his wrist shifting back and forth, his index finger a ghost against my little finger at every thrust. He’s standing near enough we might as well be spooning, his front leeching warmth into my back. Does he have any idea what he's doing? What it must look like for us? Because I doubt anyone will think his action innocent when considering its proximity to _me_ , former bad guy and all-round untouchable stain on the face of the Ministry. I bet some of them are sore that Robards even called me. I don’t need Harry making me more noticable.

 

'Potter, you're awfully close.'

'I was closer this morning,' he says, so quiet even Chang won't be able to hear him over the noise of the small crowd. 'Before you up and left.'

'I never stay,' I hiss over my shoulder. 'You know that.'

'You know I don't mind if you do.'

'It's so nice to not be _minded_ ,' I drawl, aiming to fluster him, but he just smiles.

'I'm glad you're here,' he says, and I feel his thumb stroke a line against my palm, hidden in the curve and the closeness of our hands. At least he’s stopped wanking the Portkey. 'I was wondering when I'd see you next.'

'And you couldn't have waited for that fundraiser next week?' I ask. That's what _I'd_ been expecting. He was always a sucker for underprivileged children.

'You're going to that?'

'I have to, Mother is a patron. I assumed you'd turn up for the glory and the attention.'

'Fuck you,' he quips, smiling, before sliding the tip of his thumb into the tight gap between the rope and my palm. 'Though… if that was the attention you were referring to…?'

'Could you _not_ , please?' I draw my hand away with a casual shift of my weight so it doesn't draw attention. 'People will see.' I turn away, knowing too much conversation between us will draw just as much scrutiny as purposeful avoidance.

'So?' he asks the curve of my shoulder, and I feel his breath huff against my neck.

'I've rather not be that guy.'

'What guy?'

'The one,' I turn to glare at him again. 'Who never gets hired again because he corrupted the Golden Boy of Wizardkind into public displays of affection _at work_.'

He raises an eyebrow and I swear he never used to be able to do that. 'I don't think it was you who corrupted me.'

I wish, deep into my bones, that this statement had no effect on me. That I wasn't, A. very, very competitive, and B. somewhat besotted with him. I _want_ to be the one who corrupts him, who teaches him new things, who makes him gasp curses into the darkness every night. But that's not what we do. He's always the one at the metaphorical helm. Still. 'Do not issue me _challenges_ in a room full of people, Potter,' I purr at him, and the other eyebrow lifts to join its mate, his expression one of definitive interest.

'Is that a promise?' he growls and I feel something brush against my little finger. I look down and it's him, his fist twitching around the girth of the Portkey again.

'What are you doing with your hand?'

'I don't know,' his eyes join mine and his fist stills.

'It looked a lot like you were wanking the rope.'

'Does that turn you on?' He sounds almost hopeful.

'You're disgusting.'

'You weren't disgusted last night,' he reminds me.

'Neither of us have a length of salty sea-scum-encrusted rope for a cock, Potter,' I breathe, hoping to all gods, ever, this room isn't under any sort of magical audio surveillance.

'I remember it tasting slightly salty…'

'Could we not,' I beg him. 'Please.'

'You really are bothered by this. Why?'

I can't help but sigh. He, seemingly, has no idea why I don't want him flaunting our not-relationship and essentially leading me down the garden path with his flippant displays of affection that ultimately can only mean nothing, or we wouldn't be stuck in this hideous cycle of being each other's Plan B every time we go out. Neither of us ever bring dates to anything, it's far more convenient to go stag, drink the free booze (or cheap booze if it's merely a pub night), not have to be nice to anyone, leave when the dancing starts and still get off and go to bed rumpled and happy and smelling ever-so-slightly of someone else’s spunk. 

'This is so typically you. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to do whatever they want and get away with it. You're breaking about eight rules of basic etiquette right now, and at least two points of your contract, as well as goading me into breaking one of mine.'

'Oh, it's the rule-breaking you don't like?' There's a twinkle in his eye I don't quite trust.

'I like having a job.'

'I like giving you one.'

'I'm moving,' I say, because my cock is definitely taking an interest in where this is headed and I can't afford to have an erection now. 'Chang, swap places with me, will you?'

'No,' she says, and turns back to her conversation with Lisa Turpin on the other side of the rope.

'Wh-?'

'I don't have to explain myself to you,' she says. 'You're not the boss of me.'

'I am, actually,' I point out, and I can feel myself getting progressively shittier about the whole situation. 'Do let me know if you for some reason _dislike_ paid overtime.'

She just gives me a look. For a split second I wish Carlisle was back so she could rip her a new one.

 

Robards calls us all to order then with a sharp two-fingered whistle, before barking instructions and checking his roll. Potter is blissfully self-contained during the whole process, proving he has at least some sense of decorum, and, of course, putting me off-guard for when he slips back into terribly-uncalled-for sexual harassment mode.

 

Once again, I feel the soft slap of his fist tapping mine where our fingers are clasped around the rope. The ring made by his index finger and thumb is warm and soft against the curve of my little finger and the persistent, repetitive motion, the exact pace that would get me going if his hand was somewhere else… it weakens me. So that when the countdown starts and he steps a fraction closer and slides his free hand down my arse and between my thighs, I'm not ready for it. The swirl and suck and dreadful spinning sensation of the Portkey is edged with both reluctant arousal and horror that he's touching me so boldly. It's lucky I react by tightening my fist around the rope and not letting go of it, or he'd have some explaining to do to his boss. _Sorry curse-breaker Malfoy got left behind, sir, I was just innocently sexually assaulting him, and in his alarm he lost his grip on the Portkey._ Lost his grip indeed. Currently losing his grip on reality, maybe. Definitely losing control of the situation. If I ever had it. The swirl of Portkey travel may never be unlinked from the thrill of being fondled by him in public. Yet another reminder of the status of our relationship: secret occasional tumble-buddies. It's like school and fucking Michael all over again.

 

We land heavily in a field; it's cold and smells like burning chemicals. Harry lets his hand drop from my arse but the movement draws the attention of his partner, Lisa, who gives me a raised eyebrow and a knowing smirk, and I realise I've been naive in assuming my candidness with Chang is unique. Of course Potter has a confidant. Of course it's his partner. As a Ravenclaw, she was outside of the fervent rivalry he and I had built around ourselves at school. Not neutral in the political conflict, but it would've been far less personal to her. She'd be a better confidant to him than Granger or Weasley, who would likely have personal opinions about us. Yet another reason he should be keeping his hands to himself.

 

We're all given tasks immediately; the Portkey is coiled and crated and stacked with an ever-expanding pile of gear being unshrunk out of two large black duffle bags. Potter is ushered off before I can even look at him, and I catch Lisa still smirking when I turn back from watching him walk away. I give her a look, because I bet she won't actually say anything no matter how long she stares. 

 

'Curse-breakers,' says an authoritative voice at my elbow, and I turn to see an unknown man with a clipboard and a comb-over that seems to be enjoying the wind. 'Which of you are in charge?'

'I am,' I say as I turn, and damn, does that feel strange. 'Where would you like us to start?'

'Set up the accommodation tents,' he says and points behind me. 'Upwind of that, I'd say. Smells like Windolene had a baby with a bag of sugar and they all died horrifically in a fire.'

'Accommodation tents?' I'm hoping I heard wrong, and yet…. If this is an overnight excursion…

'They're just over there, Gabriel will sort you out.'

'Yes, thank you,' I say, even though he hasn't answered my question. 'Why are there accommodation tents?'

'Precaution, the weather here turns fast,' he shrugs. 'And it's fucking cold to start with. Wouldn't you rather have your allotted breaks inside?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Accommodation tents,' Chang says as we watch him walk away toward the staunch huddle of red-robed Aurors. 'That's convenient.'

'Or appalling. Let's see how many there are first, shall we?'

'Wouldn't it be terrible if people had to share…'

'Fuck off, Chang.'

'Potter probably won't mind.'

'I said, fuck off.'

'I reckon you'd be into it.'

'I hate you.'

I lead our small team over to where a slightly sun-razed man is standing with a clipboard. There are people at his feet, counting off miniature crates of supplies.

'Are you Gabriel?'

'I am.'

'I'm Draco Malfoy,' I begin, and introduce my team in turn. 'We were told to see to the accommodation tents?'

'Those ones,' he points. 'And if you get a minute, can you help the housekeeping crew, he gestures over his shoulder. ‘They're a man down this morning and if they don't get me a cup of tea in the next half hour I swear I'll hurt someone.'

'Of course,' I nod. 'Any recommendations on where we set these?'

'Upwind,' he says, and shrugs.

'Where will we be actually working?' I ask, since all I've seen so far is the charred cottage and the people I arrived with. 

'Under that,' he points at the wreckage. 'Terrific shame, that was one of the oldest buildings on this island.'

'Island?'

'Shetland. Did the barren fields and lack of human ruination not give it away?'

'I've never been,' I say, and maybe I should have. 'Briefing just said rural Scotland.'

Gabriel shrugs and turns away to deal with something else and I beckon my team to follow me, my eyes turning traitorous and searching for Potter in the background, but he's nowhere to be seen.

 

***

 

It turns out that 'Accomodations' isn't just a fancy word for 'overnight sleeping areas' and the bundle of shrunken tents includes _all_ communal spaces that a group of this size needs. We argue for a short while in the cold but the agreement is unanimous that if the weather were to turn bad, we'd be disinclined to walk very far. We, thus, position the Operations tent opposite the mess tent and nice and close to the ruined cottage, a corridor of space between them, angled just so to shelter us from the worst of the nibbling wind. The dormitory (ugh) tents we place next, as near as we can get them to the first pair. We make them face to face again, openings slightly closer together so it narrows the corridor slightly, the last two closer again. If I've calculated the angles right, the wind should avoid sweeping up between the rows and making the entry and exit to our meagre accomodations too unpleasant. I'm still baffled as to why we need them all though. I'm trying very hard to not get shitty, to be honest, since I remember nothing about being told to expect an overnight stay and yet everyone else looks completely calm. I don't want anyone under my command to feel as though they're in poor hands (temporary as it may end up being), and asking questions would be tantamount to admitting I had no idea what was going on.

 

As we check the tethers on the last two tents, I see Potter emerge from the cottage husk in a three piece suit. Had he been wearing that before? It's form-fitting and unapologetic about it, expertly cut to hug his sculpted form. His arse looks impossibly perfect and I'm distracted enough that I get my foot caught in one of the empty tent storage bags and almost garotte myself on a guy rope on my way to hitting the ground. Fortunately, Potter's not the only one with muscle tone and quick reflexes, so I manage to both save myself from an embarrassing death and also refrain from squawking in surprise as I go down. As it is, only Bert sees me picking myself up and he does nothing but roll his eyes.

Potter's disappeared by the time I right myself, which is a shame, but at least I can't be accused of staring at him if he isn't there. 

'You all right?' Chang asks, watching me dust the shame off my knees. 'Did a bug touch you?' Sarcastic cow.

'Are we done here?' I decide to ignore her. 'We should get inside for briefing, it looks like the Aurors have finished the warding.'

'It looks like Harry was dressed for a Muggle press conference instead of helping them…'

'Was he? I didn't notice.'

'Oh yes, lovely suit, nice and tight across his arse,' she grins. 'Pretty tight at the front too, if you know where to look.'

'According to him, you didn't know where to look.'

_'Me?_ He-' She huffs at me. 'Draco Malfoy, you're winding me up, you shit.'

'Inside?' I offer.

'I bet you wish you were.'

'Yes, let’s get a move on then.'

'That's not what I meant.'

‘I’m ignoring what you meant,’ I say, and the truth of that is larger than she could possibly know. 

 

***

 

Briefing is a bit repetitive if you'd paid attention before we left London, but it's more comfortable in the Operations tent than it is outside, so I don't much mind. We'd arrived in time to all get seats, Chang, Bert, Alphie and I, even had time to fetch tea. The Aurors had filled up the rest of the seats around the long table, there are six of them including Robards, but I only know Potter and Lisa by name. He'd been late arriving from wherever he'd been, coming in well after the two teams and hangers-on had assembled and right as Robards started talking. The local Historian (a middle aged woman whose trousers have more pockets than an advent calendar) had glared at him in a way that made me wonder if she knew who he was.

 

She isn't the only extra - there’s a tall, soft-looking woman in an apron who I assume is running the mess tent (possibly single-handedly). Beside her is a young woman that reminds me inexplicably of Granger, if Granger had been tall, possibly Caribbean and definitely far hotter than any academic had the right to be while wearing a polar fleece jumper. Robards introduces her as a doctoral candidate specialising in Dark Artefacts of the 19 th century in Europe and surrounding islands, though most of the men (and possibly the woman in the pocket trousers) couldn't have told you that, since when he was saying it, the woman smiled and the world stilled for a heartbeat, as we all subtly rearranged our pants. Harry, in an act of flawless transparency, began sucking on the Muggle pen he was holding, looking almost painfully interested in the brilliant shine of her perfectly straight teeth. Bastard.

 

All persons introduced, Robards goes on (and on) with the briefing. We learn more about the history of the house, the island, Muggle drug manufacturing, and the structural issues that will limit our speed and ease of access. More importantly, we learn about what was down there. Less important, but more difficult to ignore, I learn what it looks like when Harry Potter stares at me while fellating a fucking pen. 

 

Understandably, not that I'd ever call on it as an excuse, I was not the least tense person in the room by the time they got around to giving us our orders. Harry had been holding the end of the silver coloured shaft in his teeth and flicking his tongue back and forth across the rounded cap, leaving trails of shining wetness in its wake. I don't remember ever having quite so persistent an erection during a work meeting in my life. Combat training electives, sure, but then, that had been his fault too. Twat had a thing for ropes and I had a thing for being tied up and sucked dry — who'd have known. I should've run from him then, before we started _doing things._ It's not like he'd got less attractive, or less buff, or less ridiculously powerful, with his careless, wandless, almost _playful_ hand-wavingly casual use of magic that makes me want to rip my clothes off and lie at his feet. Or slap him (and he doesn't mind that either). He just won't let me fuck him. Or at least, he's never given any indication he wants me to.

 

I'm perilously distracted when they start talking work processes and I almost miss an important nugget of information I need to disagree with. Robards has handed over to the Operations Manager, Henry Atelerix, whom I've never actually worked with directly. He's a sour-looking man, with a face like he expects you to challenge his decisions but doesn't expect he'll give a shit either way. He wants us, the curse-breakers, to go down there individually, with an Auror to 'keep an eye on us', like they'll be any help at all. I find myself somewhat incensed by his assumptive tone and absolute flouting of policy. I voice my concerns. Harry watches me talk with the pen sliding in and out between his lips.

'I'm sorry, Malfoy, is it?' Atelerix acts polite.

'Yes, sir,' I follow his lead. 'Acting team leader in Ms Carlisle's absence. We aren't going down there alone. Not into an unfamiliar situation.'

'You won't be alone, you'll have an Auror with you.' He's a patronising git and I want to slap him. 

'That's the same as alone for a curse-breaker, sir. Aurors aren't useful to us, not like a partner is. Besides which, it's against protocol.' Harry's pen, moving slowly at first, plunges faster, deeper between his lips as I commit to my cause.

'Ms Carlisle has always been accommodating in the past, I'm sure we can make it work,' Atelerix says.

'I'm not Ms Carlisle, sir. She's sitting in St Mungo's with significantly less skin than the last time she accommodated you, because she didn't follow protocol.'

'What are you proposing, then, young Mr Malfoy?' he scoffs, trying to make me seem ridiculous. He can try. In those ill-fitting robes he could try all day and it wouldn't make a difference. 'It seems as though you think you have a better idea.'

'We go down in pairs,' I insist. 'As is protocol. We don't need Aurors, we just need each other.'

'That will take twice as long!' he huffs. 'We have six vaults and a very curious public to account for.'

'Your assumption is incorrect. Two curse-breakers together can work faster and cover more ground than two separately. A true team's productivity is greater than the sum of its parts.'

'It's too slow,' he gathers his parchment and stands up, like that's the final word. Little does he know that none of us need the money that much and we're all willing to leave rather than be risking anything on a cold windy island on a Saturday morning when we'd rather be in bed.

'Slow and alive,' I say, clear and firm. 'Or we go home. I don't want any dead civilians on my watch, do you?'

He sighs, painting me as the tiresome pain in his arse. 'If you must insist on being contrary and purposely holding this case back, then, yes, Mr Malfoy, we'll do it your way,' he glares as he shoves his chair in with more force than it deserves. 'As you well know,’ he says, leaning across the table at me. ‘It would take far longer for us to find other, less _tedious_ , curse-breakers than it'll take for you to exhaust your will to annoy me.'

Chang gasps beside me, and I see Bert rise out of his seat. Even Alphie is fractious, his head whipping back and forth in my periphery, hoping for an answer to how this went so wrong so fast. Doesn't he know? I'm a Malfoy. This is just how it is now. Atelerix is old, he remembers the aftermath, but I also remember _him_. He was at my home as they picked it apart, searching for all those rumoured dark artefacts, hoping for reasons to shut us away. The thing he doesn't know, is that I had been searching too, and I had unravelled a hundred curses before they even got there. 

'I think this has less to do with my will and more to do with yours,' I say. 'It's almost as it you're _unwilling_ to separate your memories of my childhood home a decade ago, from your assessment of my current competency, now, in leading this team.' 

'I assure you, Mr Malfoy-'

'No, sir. _I assure you._ The next time you decide to insult me will be the last time you get a chance to. I am not at your beck and call. I am not yours to command. It was not your owl I answered.'

He scoffs and rolls his eyes in an overly theatrical fashion, turning and leaving without a word. No doubt to make sure everyone can see how unbothered he is by my refusal to roll over for him. 

There's only one man in this room I'd roll over for, and he's currently choking on his pen.

 

***

 

We get allocated a sleeping space by Robards at the end of the meeting. He insists we might not need them, but that we will need regular breaks (apparently _he_ knows how to follow procedure) and we might as well have a nap to stay fresh. It makes sense. Fortunately they split us by team and not by gender, so we curse-breakers can debrief privately enough as we gear up. And also Chang isn't off gossiping about my sex life with Lisa Turpin and her unnervingly knowing looks.

 

All in all, the team agrees with my stance, though Bert reckons we should've just fucked it all and gone home. The cold is playing havoc with his hips and it makes him extra cranky. Alphie subtly charms his corduroy trousers warm and gives me a covert smile. For all his awkwardness, he's attentive and kind and he'll take good care of Bert down there. They don't make curse-breakers like the old man anymore, and we need him in one piece. He mentored us all at one point or another, we owe him.

 

They've given Chang and I 'Vault 06', last on the right at the end of the narrow passageway. Alphie and Bert are across in 05, which apparently also includes subchamber A. We go over the standard order of operations on the way, take a look at both vaults all together, pointing out areas of ‘interest’ (which usually means ‘danger’) and speculating what the hell everything is under all that dust. We consider doing it one vault at a time as a group but the space is on the borderline of comfortable just standing around, so we agree to proceed as originally decided. True to what we expected, we emerge from Vault 05 to find two Aurors hovering in the dim corridor. Neither I recognise and there's a tiny, miniscule, almost insignificant flutter of disappointment. Though, maybe Potter's off somewhere recovering from the shock of finally locating his gag reflex.

 

The morning goes slowly, Chang is less than chatty given her hangover, peppering the quiet with melodramatic sighing and the soft moans of the regretful and tired. After what turns out to only be an hour and five minutes, she chucks a stasis charm at the ugly vase we're working on and demands tea. I hesitate. This is my first leadership assignment and I'd like to make a good first impression. But then she says the magic words _Earl Grey,_ and I remember I've already argued publicly with the deputy head of Auror Operations and I figure what the hell, I could also do with a tea.

 

'Bert? Alphie?' She calls from the door, having already checked (as is protocol) that they aren't in the midst of something delicate. 'Tea?'

'You're a good girl, Cho,' the old man grumbles as he unfolds from his crouch. 'Lead on. Come away, Alphie.'

We troop toward the daylight, past the Aurors lingering in the doorways of the other vaults, and up the stairs someone has cut into the rock. It's colder up here, because of the wind, and for a tiny moment I miss the slowly warming caverns, ‘til I remember there's no tea down there, or biscuits. The mess tent has both, and no one seems to judge that we've appeared above ground again so soon. There's no denying the cold, I suppose.

 

Potter is nowhere to be seen. I don't feel I have to be covert about looking because Chang is right beside me doing the same thing, hoping she'll see him first so she can do something appallingly annoying, no doubt. Like call him over and ask what he's been up to lately. At least while she's looking for him, she's not looking at me. We fetch our tea and drink in companionable silence for the most part, only discussing what we've found so far once we run out of cheap biscuits. I summon the report forms so we can keep up with the details and it ends up being mildly productive. 

 

It's when I tip back my cup for the last time, noting how the cold has permeated it already so the final mouthful is only lukewarm, that I see Harry again. He bursts in through the tent flaps like there are flesheaters outside, and shudders, stomping his feet a little and shaking out his Auror robes as he moves over to the servery. I assume he hasn't seen me until I feel his warm weight settle on the bench beside me a moment later, cup in hand.

'Going okay so far?' he asks.

'Really well,' Chang answers for me, slightly agog that he's come over to me again, so blatantly seeking my attention. 'Where have you been?'

'Oh,' he looks at her for the first time. 'They had us searching the surrounding area for more caverns, scanning and stuff.'

'See anything interesting?'

'Other than my own fingers turning blue from the cold, no. I've begged off back inside. Someone with more body fat can have that job, thanks.'

'Are you going down with us, then, Harry?' She asks with a tiny, evil smile that proves the double entendre was intentional.

'Maybe, what've you found so far?' He turns to me.

I’m tempted to answer that I've found that Chang is a meddling pain in the arse, and that their status as exes isn't enough to prevent her from engaging with him for the purpose of vexing me. In that moment, though, I also find that Harry might be right-handed, but his left is very capable of discreetly stroking the side of my leg under the table.

'A few statues, a large platter, a fertility totem, two jewellery boxes and a pair of ornate Victorian candlesticks,' Alphie tells him. I wonder if he'll offer the report form just to be extra thorough. He looks like he's about to, when Chang intervenes.

'Was there anything _in_ the jewellery boxes?' she asks. Always fascinated with sparkles, that girl. Worse than a magpie on hallucinogens.

'Didn't open them,' Bert shakes his head. He looks uncharacteristically impressed with whatever he’s replaying behind his eyes, and my inner alarms go off when I realise it's probably the level of Dark Magic he'd detected when scanning them. He's a tiny bit of a liability. Age has made him brave. 'Wrapped them up for later, we'll need the lab for the both of them, I reckon.' 

'That's a good point,' I say. 'Potter? Where can we store items we need to transport back to London? I don't fancy anyone carrying two cursed objects back via Portkey.'

'I can find out for you,' he smiles and his fingers still against my thigh, like I've somehow walked into his web, and I'm left with an odd sensation of floating, unanchored, in the sea of his confidence. 'I'll see you down there once I have an answer for you?' 

'That's where we'll be,' I say, and the sense of doom I feel is soft and warm, instead of the usual weight it has of dread and gloom. It's almost more frightening, and I have to stand up, get further away from him and my ridiculous feelings. He's coming to visit. Why do I care? It's not like it can possibly be considered a big deal after everything else we've done. A G-rated conversation about jewellery boxes in an underground vault, with my partner to chaperone? It's not even worth blushing over. 'Til later, Potter.'

 

He's still smirking when I turn to go, Chang goggling at the two of us like we might suddenly fall into each other’s arms here in the mess tent, sprawling on the fold-out table til it collapses onto the floor under the weight of our inappropriate lust. She wishes. I deposit my cup in the correct dish rack and head straight out, not even bothering to see if my team is following.

 

Back down in the vault, I'm treated to a barrage of questions from Chang (hangover apparently gone) about what I think would happen 'if'. Versions of my life where I'm not a curse-breaker, or a former death eater, or a Malfoy. Scenarios where I'm a girl, or he is, or we both are, and it's getting seriously not work-appropriate when she goes quiet suddenly, mid-rant about how so very many people seem to think that girl-girl intimacy doesn't count as real sex. I pray, when I hear the shuffle of feet, that it's maybe Atelerix here to fire me and not Harry, here to torture me. I'm apparently not important enough for any god to bother with, because of course it's _him_ , standing in the doorway, just in faded jeans this time and a sweatshirt I'm pretty sure he was wearing last night when I… Of course. He probably wore it on purpose. He seems to take some sort of perverse pleasure in reminding me of all the times we've seen each other recently, sans clothing. Well. Sans trousers, at least. His kitchen is cold in the middle of the night.

 

'Hi,' he says. 

I whip a quick containment spell around the baby rattle I was working on (infertility curse, which seems a little harsh, even for a dark arts obsessed nut job like the person who hoarded all of this crap). 'Potter?'

'They've set up a crate for the things you want to take back to the lab. They're going to fly it back when we're done, just do one trip.'

'Good.'

'It's a fair size, there's plenty of room,’ he smirks. ‘Fill it up if you want.'

Chang chokes on a breath beside me and Harry doesn't even blink. Her coughing fit does not immediately abate, and she picks herself up off the floor and gestures at her throat. 'Water,' is all says before squeezing out past him and disappearing. So much for a chaperone.

'You broke my partner,' I say.

'You could get another one,' he says, looking at the floor as he slips into the room and my heart begs to read into the subtext of that. 

'I rather like her,' I say instead of vomiting my feelings on him.

'I rather used to as well,' he shrugs, and takes a few steps toward me.

'I dare say in a different way.’ I say, wondering how close he’ll get. Wondering what he’s been gearing up for all morning. ‘She's never tried to take me to Puddifoot's.'

'Probably never cried on you either,' he says, closing the gap between us and finally looking me in the eye.

'Yes, well, I'm not a terrible kisser.'

He looks affronted. 'I'm not a t-' 

He has to stop, because I can't. Even the _thought_ of kissing him is too much to contain, and I grab him by the front of his stupid bloody sweatshirt and wrap my hand around his neck and pull him to me, aligning our lips so they fit just so. He lets me. Lets me take his top lip and the faint prick of stubble gently between my teeth, grazing over his slick skin. Lets me fist my fingers into his hair, lets me lick into his mouth ‘til the world drops away and we're just two idiots standing woozily in a room full of deadly cursed objects, clinging to each other and making out like we're still teenagers in heat. I can't even make myself stop when I realise how wholey unprofessional this is. Every time I slow it down, he surges forward, pressing himself against me a little harder, as if I'd issued some sort of challenge and he just can't ever let it go.

 

It's disaster that pulls us apart, eventually. Not ours. Down the passageway somewhere, a dull bang and a slight quake in the ground beneath our feet. He reacts before I do, dropping into a fighting stance and holding me steady, one of his hands wrapped tight around my upper arm, the other holding his wand.

'Stay here,' he whispers, his lips still wet from kissing me and for some reason this leaves me feeling utterly helpless and incapable of acting like a proper fucking adult. More importantly, like the man in charge of the curse-breaking team, and I stand there in the vault for a few seconds, watching him make his way cautiously toward the sound of the explosion before I remember I'm not actually completely useless.

 

When I get to the door, he's a few metres away, wandlessly siphoning smoke away with his left hand, right hand ready and pointing that familiar length of holly toward Vault 03. That's not where Alphie and Bert were, so what the fuck is going on? 

 

'Philip?' he calls through the grey haze. There's a slight reddish tinge to it in this light, darker where it’s spilling out of the entrance to the vault and it almost looks like—

'Harry!' I throw a Protego around him so fast he stumbles, but I don't even care. I cast a Bubble-Head Charm on him and then myself and send a tiny red canary across the hall and into Vault 05, and where the fuck are the others anyway? Didn't they hear the bang? And how the fuck is there a cloud of Crimson Widow in this fucking corridor? 

 

Unless… I cast a diagnostic. It's three degrees warmer down here than it was half an hour ago. Fuck. _Fuck._

 

Of course they'd used climate triggers. That would explain the depth of the hoard, the location being an island off Scotland, the division into several small vaults and not one long cavern. We need to get out. But how, when the way is blocked? Harry had been siphoning the initial smoke from the explosion away but where to? Up the stairs? Was it potent, still, even if the poison wasn’t condensed enough I could see the colouring? Who else up there might be affected? Anyone? Was the wind going to be strong enough to dissipate it — dilute it enough to make it harmless? 

 

Harry turns, finally, realising the shield isn't going to let him go, and his face wars between rage and fear, and I don't even know which one he should go with. Not now.

 

He sees my Bubble-Head and comprehension smooths his features. It seems incongruous that realising you're amidst a cloud of poison would calm anyone, but he's special like that. His voice comes through warped, but I expect he's asking what to do. Thing is, I don't know. If we stay here, and I do nothing, it's likely other people will get poisoned, since Crimson Widow is uncommon and certainly not part of the Hogwarts or Auror Academy curriculums. My team will be the only ones onsite who know what it is. And I don't know where they are. If Chang is upstairs, she'll sort it out, but if she's down here, on the other side of the cloud, she's probably unconscious. I have no idea where Bert and Alphie are. 

Harry is not plagued by such problems. He comes back to me, grabs my elbow and pushes me back into the vault we just came out of. A lifesize silver stag bursts into being over my shoulder and it's lucky he's still holding my elbow or I'd be lying, startled, in a pile of ominous looking furs. Instead I’m clinging to him like a skittish cat, still wondering what the fuck I’m going to do, and why on earth we might need a Patronus.

He flicks his wand at the doorway and the shimmer of a _Protego_ stretches to the edges, sealing us in. He points at the bubble around his head, eyebrow raised.

I hold my hand up in pause and run a few diagnostic spells on the room, glad to have a task, then make him stand still while I _Scourgify_ his clothes and my own. When my heart has calmed to a merely worried pace, I _Finite_ our bubbles.

'What is it?' he asks immediately. 'What does it do?'

'Crimson Widow. It's a strong soporific. You'd sleep for days, weeks. Months with enough exposure. How do you feel?'

'Okay,' he says. 'Not sleepy. What shall we tell the others?’ he gestures at his Patronus, waiting patiently in the corner. ‘I'm assuming we can't walk out through it?'

'We can't,’ I sigh. ‘Not without an immediate decontamination shower which we don't have. Besides, the cold would probably be its own problem once we were wet. It's two degrees up there.'

'Tell my Patronus whatever you think they should know.'

I nod, and breathe, and think for a second of what might make a difference, before speaking.

'Chang, if you're up there, keep everyone away from the vaults. Something went off — an explosive of some sort in Vault 03, the corridor appears to be filled with vapourised poison. Crimson Widow I think. I don't know where Bert and Alphie are, I sent them a canary but they didn't reply. Find a safe way to disperse the smoke and let me know when it's done. We're secure in Vault 06. If…' I pause, and Harry turns to me. I can’t meet his eye. 'If Chang isn't up there, and you're hearing this, then she's down here with us, and she's in trouble. Hurry.'

He cups my chin in his hand and brings my gaze up to meet his. He just looks at me for a moment, expression grim. Then he orders the stag away, and we watch it disappear through the wall in silence.

 

'What now?' he asks.

'We wait, I guess.'

'Do you think everyone else is ok?' 

'I don't know,’ I say, pulling his hand away from my face but not letting it go. ‘My team would all recognise it. But, what if they're trapped like we are?'

'Well, they'd probably know how to keep safe like we are,' he says, squeezing my fingers.

'What if they weren't ready for it, or didn't see it in time? I'm responsible for them.' I can’t keep the emotion out of my voice.

'What's the worst case scenario?' He asks.

'They're asleep for six months and I have no team left.'

'It can't kill them?'

'No.'

'Then it could be worse,' he says and his free hand is suddenly rubbing my shoulder, and I have to focus very, very hard on not being distracted by that. He’s not wrong. Chang will be fine, even if she isn't now. And Bert and Alphie are good at their jobs. I could always send them a Patronus too, just so they know what's going on. Just in case they're trapped somewhere.

'Is this how you got through the war — focusing on how much shitter things could be?'

'No,’ he frowns. ‘It was always far shitter than I could imagine.'

It's dark as fuck, but he laughs and I can't help smiling. 

'You have a poor imagination, then, Potter.'

'I do not,' he smirks again, and it feels different this time.

'I could've made it infinitely worse for you, if I'd cared to,' I point out.

'You could make it better now,’ he slides his hand up to my neck, his fingers warm and rough against my skin. ‘If you care to?'

I give him a look, and it's in direct opposition to the interest my cock is showing in response to his innuendo. Traitorous appendage.

'I don't fancy being rescued naked,' I say.

'Who said anything about naked?'

'You impl—'

I don't get to finish, he's on me already, and I want to be annoyed but every nerve is busy being flattered by the fervent attention. His hands fall to my waist and wrap around my ribs, sliding up my sides until they cup my shoulder blades, holding me close. His mouth is warm and familiar, and he seems perfectly at ease kissing me here, outside of his bedroom. Again. 

'What are we doing?' I whisper as he redirects his attention to my neck. I don't _mean_ to whisper, I just don't seem to be able to _do_ anything else.

'I'm kissing your neck,' he says, and the heat of his breath is divine in this cold little cavern of potential doom. I should really do something about that. What if some of the other things are on climate triggers?

'We should probably secure the room,' I say.

'We're fine, I did the door, it'll hold.'

'I meant the other cursed objects,' I sigh, because I don't really want him to stop. But of course, I don't want him to die either, because that'd mean the end of this in a more permanent way. 'If something in Vault 03 was on a climate trigger, then maybe something in here is too.'

He pulls back then, his curiosity piqued. 'Is that what you think it was?'

'Seems likely, with the underground bunker in ever-freezing Scotland, the lack of exploded items when we got here, and the increase in temperature we caused by having seven people down here at once.'

'Oh,’ he says, and I watch the facts click together in his head. ‘You're pretty clever, aren't you.'

'Always that tone of surprise, Potter.'

'I'm not _surprised_ , I'm impressed.'

'Well, why don't you practise being impressed without the threat of doom hanging over us and help me deal with what's left in here?’ I push gently at his chest. ‘We should at least wrap them in containment charms.'

'I thought Aurors were useless to you curse-breakers?'

'I thought pens were for writing.'

'You noticed that?' he huffs a laugh and looks overly pleased with himself.

'Did I notice you blowing a pen, right in front of me, in a meeting, after we'd shagged not seven hours previous? Yes, Potter, I noticed.’

'You called me Harry before.'

'I thought you were going to die.'

'You reacted instinctively. You _want_ to call me Harry. Deep down, you probably _do_ call me that. And yet you're so careful to never say it. Why?'

'Because, obviously, you're the type to read into it.'

He's about to say something else, when Chang's swan Patronus comes flapping inelegantly through the wall and rearranges its wings in a mess of ruffled feathers and haughty bird-glare and he and I break apart. I hate her Patronus, usually, but this time it means she's alive and capable of happy thoughts.

_'Draco, you stupid git, only you could get stuck in a bloody cave with the guy you're boffing and make it look like an accident. I hate you. I have to clear it out by myself now, because everyone else up here is fucking useless. You owe me. You have thirty minutes. Bert and Alphie are fine, by the way, there was another exit but it caved in behind them when whateverthefuck exploded up their arses. Thirty minutes!'_

 

Fuck. 

 

I look over at Harry and he's blushing a bit, which is heartening, at least. He doesn't seem horrified that she knows we're… _boffing,_ to use her delightful choice of word. I expect Lisa knows as well, and that's why she's been giving me weird looks and why they’ve been chatting.

'Thirty minutes,' he says.

'And a pile of doom, Potter. That needs seeing to.'

'I need seeing to,' he mutters, but he turns to the pile and raises his wand. 'Shall we just contain everything in one big thing?'

'If you want one of them to explode and set the others off and really test the strength of your containment charm, then yeah, why not?'

'Individually then?' He sighs.

'Yes, let's do that.'

'And if we have time at the end?' he smirks, and shoots me a sidelong glance that only lingers on my face for a split second before raking down my front and lingering somewhere else.

'Yes, Potter, if you're good, I'll let you replay your little pen fantasy on my dick. Happy?'

'I will be.'

'Shall we, then?'

'You're very bossy,' he says.

'I have to be, no one else will tell you what to do,' I point out.

'People, er, have. Before,’ he blushes. ‘In the past.'

Interesting. Very, extremely, terribly, wonderfully interesting and absolutely not the time to be telling me. But still. I can’t help asking.

'And you like that?'

'Yeah? You know, sometimes. For a change,' He looks almost sheepish. Bless his little cotton socks.

'Good to know. Containment spells,' I growl, and ironically, it's my pants that need one the most.

 

***

 

Seconds after the last artefact is enmeshed in magical restraint spells, I find myself similarly contained. Harry accosts me from behind and wraps his arms around my middle, resting his chin on my shoulder. 

‘Hey,’ he says.

‘Hello.’

‘What were we doing before you made us contain a thousand random objects?’

‘’The objects are never truly random,’ I tell him.

‘I feel like you’ve missed the point,’ he says and his hands drop lower, smoothing down my belly and resting lightly over my hip bones, tantalisingly close to my cock but not quite there, teasing. 

‘The point was to survive til we can be rescued.’

‘I don’t think that’s the pointiest thing in the room,’ he says, and grinds his entire crotch against my arse. ‘Or at least it won’t be for long.’

I remember his admission about being amenable to instruction. I wonder how far that goes, if it’ll overlap with my overwhelming desire to shove him up against something and make him stay still for once. And if so, do I order him to do it or just _make him_? Perhaps there’s a happy medium. I disengage his hands and turn in his embrace til I’m facing him. I give him a little push with my hand; flat against his chest; a suggestion to step back but not an imperative. He does it, and I stalk him across the floor for three paces, four, til his back finds the wall and I take one more step and we’re pressed together and I smother his mouth with mine. 

 

He’s always been a touch shorter than me, and it suits this scenario well. His slight helplessness in being pinned and his inferior height cause my appetite to rouse itself again. I take his wrists in my hands as I kiss him, standing even taller as he slouches down the wall, obviously enjoying the shift in control. I ease his arms up, over his head, and hold his wrists there with one hand, the other sliding around his waist, pulling him closer. He slips a leg between mine and practically mounts my thigh, grinding into my hip. His kisses turn wanton as he presses himself against me, and I feel him harden, even as his mouth gets wetter, his breath more gasping, his wrists flexing under my hand. We’re on the borderline of indecent in less that five minutes, both caught up in the feel of each other’s bodies, so familiar in some ways. But after last night, and with this new power dynamic, and being trapped underground, in danger with only our wits and our magic… it’s almost new again. We forget where we are, _who_ we are, for a time.

 

A tiny swishing sound is all the indication we get that maybe we're not alone anymore. I turn toward the doorway, not really expecting someone to be there, one of my hands gripping Harry's hip, now, the other still holding his wrists above his head. But there she is, Lisa Turpin — former schoolmate, Ravenclaw and Harry's partner of three years — looking awfully smug and not at all surprised.

'I guess you finally told him then?' she says, and I can safely assume she isn't talking to me. I'm right.

'No,' Harry growls at her. 'Go away.' 

They remind me of siblings born too close together, familiar and bickering and constantly on the verge of solving their problems with childish physical violence (a Gryffindor thing). 

 

Chang and I are more like an elderly married couple, teasing and baiting and vexing each other but in general slightly more gentle. Lisa has obviously been led astray. But what is she up to now?

'Told me what?' I ask, noting the way Harry won't meet my eye.

'Nothing,' he says, twisting easily out of my grasp. 'Lisa is being a meddlesome little shit as usual.'

'Then why did you say 'no' like there _was_ something and you hadn't told me?'

'I'll give you a minute, shall I?' Lisa says, her voice light, but all of the innocence obviously feigned when I look at her face. She’s even more obvious than Chang. Whatever it is, she clearly doesn’t agree with Harry keeping it to himself.

'I hate you,' Harry calls after her as she slips back into the corridor.

'What was she talking about?' I ask.

He sighs, scrubs his hand over his face and adjusts the front of his trousers. 'Can we talk about it later?'

'You keep saying that — _later._ Like it's a given there'll be a _later_ in which we're together.'

'Isn't it?'

'I've never assumed that.'

'Is that why you always leave?' He looks genuinely curious.

'You've never explicitly invited me to stay,' I point out.

'I've invited you to do other things _explicitly_. I thought it was a given.'

'There you go again, expecting me to know what you want.'

'You do a really good impression of knowing already,' he says, looking down at his still tented trousers, then up at me from under his lashes. 

'Well, I don't. I have no idea what you want with me, and no idea if we're on the same page, and no idea what the limits are to this… _thing_ we're doing.'

'Well. Let's agree to there being a _later_ this time. When we aren't working. Or being watched by our gossip-hungry work wives.'

'Chang might act like a wife, but Lisa acts like your sister.'

'Nice of you,’ he says, sarcasm light on his tongue. ‘Marrying my first girlfriend and not even inviting me.'

'You would've liked the wedding night; no tears.' I raise my eyebrow, selling it as a joke, but he looks a little dumbstruck, and I curse his Auror senses.

'Did you…?' he breathes.

'Didn't you two?' I wonder if I've over-shared. Maybe he wanted me innocent. 

_'No,’_ he says. ‘I was fifteen. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.'

'I meant you and Lisa,’ I smirk, hoping. ‘I know you and _Chang_ didn't sleep together. It was a source of much angst during your man-bun phase. She's very into that. I think she considered it a wasted opportunity that you dated and she never got to—.'

'Stop,’ he holds up his hands. ‘Just — what?' he stares at me. 'Did you sleep with _your partner?_ And now the two of you talk about me? Like, about us?'

'There's an _us?'_

'For fuck’s sake, Draco. _I_ don't go round sleeping with just anybody.' His face is conflicted, flashing between anger and… something else. 'Do _you?_ Like. Since we…'

'Can we talk about this later?' I ask, because I’m realising he's not going to like the answer and I don't want to fight about it here.

'Okay,' he says, but he's not okay. Not at all. He looks _hurt_.

I don't want to consider why. We've never seen each other two nights in a row, not even during ball season. We've never talked about what we do. Never even said, _I'll see you next time,_ or, _are you going to Luna's charity gala?_ After a handful of hook-ups and not a word about it, I'd figured it was what it was and nothing more. I'd not denied myself the other opportunities that'd presented themselves. I had needs and he wasn't meeting them. Physically, of course, but emotionally too. Sometimes you just want someone to hold you all night to prove you're real. Now I'm left wondering where this has been going without my noticing, what it's going to mean for my feelings if it's actually _something_. Is it just going to be even more satisfying physically and thus more emotionally destructive? If the sex was merely mind-blowing, I could cope. But this, the welcomed shift in dominance, is a wonderful, horrible sign of a deeper compatibility. So what if he has feelings for me? What if he's always wanted me to stay, and every time I haven't, he's talked himself down like I have every time he lets me leave?

What if I've been the one fucking this up the whole time?

'I do like you, you know,' I say, and it seems just woefully inadequate for the situation we're in, and like maybe I should've said it months ago, before I put his cock in my mouth and convinced myself it was all just for fun.

'Okay,' he says, like he doesn't believe me.

I don't what else to do. Words aren't coming, so I do what I always do when I can't talk to him. I slide my fingers into his hair, and tilt his head back and try and pour all my affection into his mouth with a kiss, and he just _lets me_. Again, like always. I finally get what Chang meant this morning when she said it, and I reckon, probably, he's a little bit on the same page as me, at least. But I’ve hurt him. I place one last, chaste kiss on his mouth and step back.

'Come on,' I say, and tug at his hand so he'll follow. 'Let's get something to eat before the inevitable incident meeting.'

He comes silently, a step behind me down the corridor, his body colliding with mine as I stop in the doorway of Vault 03 to survey the damage. It looks about how my heart feels, red staining the floor and the back wall crumbled and sad-looking.

'That looks serious,' he says. 'I’m beginning to expect this might be more than a one-day affair.'

'If you play your cards right,' I say, and I can't believe I'm flirting with him, here, now. Am I that bothered that he's upset? Am I trying simply to make him feel better? Or has his unwitting revelation of his potential feelings loosening my tongue?

I move on down the corridor without looking back.

 

***

 

'Decontamination shower. Now.'

'I'm not _contaminated.'_

Chang gives me a look like I'm a special kind of stupid and tilts her head in Harry's direction.

'Both of you. Shower. I'll not have you waltzing into a mess tent full of people and getting them all poisoned because there's some miniscule speck of death on you.'

I manage a glare that Harry can't see from where he's standing, and decide to not remind her that Crimson Widow doesn't actually _kill_ , just simulates death. She knows that, and there's no sense ruining my chance of getting Potter naked and making him forget my idiotic almost-admission that maybe I hadn't been saving myself just for him these past months.

'Fine,' I say. 'Save a plate for us, would you?'

'Of course I will, it's your favourite,' she smirks. 'Sausage.'

'You are both wrong and awful,' I say, and all she does is smile and cock her head to the side like… like some sort of evil deranged peacock. (Some things you never get over).

'I'm going to grab a spare set of clothes,' Harry says, not meeting my eye and shuffling off to the Auror tent. 'I'll meet you down there,' he calls over his shoulder.

 

I head to the curse-breakers' tent, worrying if he’ll just Apparate the fuck out of here to avoid showering with me now that I’ve disappointed him. Chang has set up the bathroom with layers of protective spells and ducting that directs all steam and waterborne particulates into a Portable Black Hole — the only Weasley invention I'm properly impressed with. They come in handy a lot in our line of work. She's marked a large sack with 'contaminated garments' and dotted the 'i' with a tiny heart. At least she seems to have plans to clean them and not vanish them; I like this shirt. Which reminds me. What the fuck am I going to wear? I look around and there, folded in a pile, is a familiar pair of trousers and a jumper I’d been half-wondering the whereabouts of. I love her again. (Though not in the way Potter might fear — it was never about that.)

 

I wonder if I should strip off and get in alone, or wait. If I get in without him, he might just wait for me to come out and we'll both end up being in there by ourselves and all of this will be a waste of Chang's meddling. But if I wait, more than likely, things will get out of hand and we'll miss lunch. If it gets _really_ out of hand, we'll miss the incident meeting as well.

'You planning on showering in your clothes?' he says from behind me, employing his catlike footsteps to great effect yet again.

'No. I just wasn't sure how to proceed.'

'Fair enough, I do usually help you undress,' he gives me a wry smile.

'I wasn't sure if you planned to do so this time.'

'I wouldn't say it was a plan exactly.'

'But you'd thought about it.'

'I had,' he sighs. 'I also thought about how there'd maybe been… others. Also helping you. Lately.' He's looking at the floor again, and the whole mess is so treacherous I'm wishing I had the strength to lie to him. Or the absence of morals that would require. Or merely that he didn't care so much. I can't bring myself to wish he'd been sleeping with other people as well.

'Do you really want to have this conversation now?' I ask him.

'I don't really like letting things fester. Always seems to go badly.'

'Okay,' I say, and I can guarantee this will also go badly, but hey, he's quite literally asking for it. I start unbuttoning my shirt and keep my eyes on his knees. 'What do you want to know?'

'Since that first night, have you slept with other people?'

'Yes.'

'People, plural?'

'Yes.' I shrug the shirt off my shoulders, and fold it before dropping it into the sack. I know it must look pointless but I want something to do with my hands and I don't know how ready I am to take off my trousers if he's going to be upset.

'How long ago?' he asks, shrugging off his hoodie so it slides off his arms, one at a time. I can see how it might make a difference in his mind. If it was only a couple of one-nighters, and at the beginning of our not-arrangement, sure, he might be able to pass it off as no big deal. Imagine that I assumed we weren't official yet and it was justifiable. He's not going to like the actual truth.

'A few weeks,' I say.

'How many weeks?' he asks, and his tone is like wet paper. Transparent and fragile and impossible to restore to its former happy self.

'Why does it matter?' I ask.

'Why won't you tell me?'

'Because we weren't — _aren't —_ together,' I point out. 'We're not dating, we're not boyfriends, we're nothing like that. You take me home with you when it suits you, play with me for hours, and until last night, never actually have sex with me.' I risk a glance up and he's staring at me with those weirdly too-green eyes, his brow low and his lashes dark. I have to look away before I can even speak again. 'You have no claim on me and you're standing here staring at me like I've done you wrong somehow.'

'We could be?' he says.

'We could be what? _Both_ staring at me?'

'No,' he looks to the ceiling, like he thinks I'm being purposely obtuse. 'Together. Boyfriends.'

'We could've been,' I agree. 'If you'd asked.'

_'You_ could've asked.'

'You never even wanted to come to my house,' I feel my heart beat harder in my chest. 'Or make plans to see me during _daylight_. Or _fuck_ , Harry. You never acted like you wanted anything real from me at all.'

'Sorry,' he says to the floor and reaches a hand over his shoulder, grabbing his shirt and yanking it over his head before throwing it in the sack. His glasses are askew and he takes them off and reaches around me to place them on the vanity along with his wand. 'I didn't realise you didn't know.'

'You haven't even told me _what_ I don't know, yet,' I say and it's as close to begging for his affection as I'll get. I just need him to say something. Anything. 

Instead he reaches for my waistband and fiddles fruitlessly with the clasp. 'In my defense, I didn't really know either,' he says, and looks up at me, gauging my reaction. 'For a while at least.'

'Didn't. Know. What?' I say, and I unhook it for him.

'That I did want to go to your house, and see you during daylight, and have something _real_.' He sighs, shrugs and smirks all at once. 'I'll admit I did know I wanted to fuck.'

'And yet…'

'I was scared it'd change things,' he says, and tugs on my zipper. 'That once you got what you wanted, you'd go.'

'You didn't even know what I wanted.'

'What do you want?'

'Clear boundaries and a safe word?'

He closes his eyes and I wonder if I've been too forward, but he plunges his hand into my open trousers and slides along the length of my cock and down, down, til he's cupping my balls. He steps closer, til I feel his breath on my cheek. 'No fucking anyone else,' he purrs in my ear. 'Is that okay?'

'I think I can manage that.'

'And try not to tell Cho everything that happens.'

'If you don't tell Lisa.'

'Let's make the safe word _decontamination_ ,' he whispers into my neck, before pressing his teeth into my skin, just enough to almost hurt.

I'm not a saint, or chaste, or any sort of angel. I reach for his jeans and rip them open with one hand. There's every chance this shower will only get us dirtier. Except, _lunch_. Still, we can't exactly turn up dry. Chang will never do me a favour again.

I slide my hands under both layers of his clothing and push them down his hips as far as I can reach while my neck is being gently gnawed upon. He follows my lead, slipping his hand out from between my thighs and shoving my boxers and trousers down a little before abandoning my neck, leaving it bruised and wet. He drops to the floor at my feet, dragging my trousers down with him. He looks up at me expectantly. 

'You're going to need to take these off.'

I step out of the puddle of clothes, half expecting him to swallow me down, half wondering how that could possibly follow on from this conversation. He surprises me, of course, placing a kiss squarely on my cock, and standing up again, shucking his own remaining clothes.

'We should get clean,' he says, and turns to the single cubicle, drawing the curtain aside and flicking the water on with another careless display of wandless magic. If I hadn't already been semi aroused… 

 

I follow him into the cubicle, and it's tight but not uncomfortable. There's a strange sort of peace in the air, as if we both know that eventually it'll be fine and there's no sense dwelling on what it feels like now, to be unhappy with each other. 

 

There's an assortment of unctions and potions in dispensers affixed to the wall and I snake my hand out of the cubicle to grab a pair of flannels off the vanity. I hand him the red one and keep the grey for myself, since abandoning house colours is as good as treason, even years after the fact. 

 

He washes his face first, and I want to take him in my arms and hold him, apologise for all the things I did that weren't technically wrong, even though I wouldn't take them back. I just want him to not be sad about them. Instead I load a cloth with something pearlescent and lilac-coloured and reach out for his naked back. He doesn't flinch, just sighs when I start rubbing the soapy cloth in small circles — across his shoulders and up his neck. He drops his head down, letting the water flow through his hair and over his face. He's making himself vulnerable, and if I was the sort to read into body language, I'd say he was laying himself down at my mercy, letting me know that even though he's hurt, and it's me that hurt him, he trusts me not to do it again.

 

As we towel ourselves dry a short while later, it occurs to me that, still, nothing is concrete. I've been told to not sleep with anyone but him, been scrubbed clean, and still don't know what we are. As we dress, he in his suit and me in my emergency-kit outfit, I find the words and the courage to break the silence.

'Do you want to be with me?' I ask, right as he's gone back to drying his hair and his face is hidden from view. He pulls the towel off his head.

'Of course that's what I want, you twat.'

'Is there anything else you want?' I watch his face. ‘Given that we just spent more long minutes naked and not devouring each other than we ever have before.’

He sighs. 'For now, just a bit of time?' He gives me a wry smile. 'I've lived through the last six months thinking this was something it apparently wasn't, and I need a bit to deal with that.'

'If it's any consolation, it wasn't anyone I cared about.'

'Not even Cho?'

'What?’ I blink, lost for a second. _‘No,_ that was years ago, during training. It was awkward for a while, but we're well past it now.'

'Which is why you can talk about me.'

'We talk about everything,' I admit.

'So do Lisa and I.'

'I figured,’ I give him a wry smile. ‘She's been giving me weird looks all day.'

'On the topic of weird looks. We should probably get to lunch.'

'Sure,’ I say, smoothing my jumper. Stalling. ‘Harry... Are we okay?'

'We will be,' he says, and he straightens his scarf around his neck. 'Soon.'

'Tell me when?' I ask.

He nods, and wraps his arms around my middle, crushing himself against me, pinning me to the vanity. I feel him breathe against my chest and I hope this isn’t just the beginning of goodbye.

 

***

 

We arrive at lunch with barely enough time to sit down before people are standing up and moving out. Lisa informs us that there's definitely an incident meeting, but it's not for twenty minutes, so we have time to eat in peace. Then her and Chang just stare, watching us eat. I ignore them.

'Harry, what the fuck,' Lisa says, her voice fondly exasperated. I turn, and he's eating his sausage whole, straight off the fork.

'There were no knives left,' he whines. 

'Have mine,' I say, sliding it over and returning to the surprisingly terrific mashed potato and gravy. 

'What're you going to eat yours with?' 

'I'm not sure I'm going to eat it at all.' 

'Are you fussy about your sausage?' Lisa asks, wide-eyed but presumably not remotely innocent.

'Yes,' I say, 'Aren't you?'

She scowls prettily. 'Not nearly as much as you are, apparently.'

There's a commotion under the table and she winces, shooting Harry a look as he glares at her over his sausage. I'm not entirely sure what she's referencing, but by Chang's expression, I think _she_ probably knows more than me. 

'I'd like you to explain what that means,' I say. 

'I would really rather prefer you _didn't,'_ Harry says and presumably steps on Lisa's foot again.

'I have a suggestion,' Chang says, waiting for all eyes to turn to her.  'What if you two tell us what's going on so we don't have to keep guessing. You both hate gossip, so it makes sense.'

I see her point but… I don't know how honest we're ready to be just yet.

'Okay,' Harry says beside me and I whip around just in time to see him wrap his lips around the giant pork sausage again and I can't actually speak for a second.  

It's all the time Chang needs. She turns her gaze on me and raises an eyebrow til I meet her eye. _I_ taught her to do that. I can't believe she's turned it on me at a time like this. She clears her throat.

'Maybe,' I say. 'Within reason.'

'Ok. Did you have a proper talk today?'

Harry is still chewing on his mouthful of sausage, so I answer for us. 'Yes.'

'With words, and not just shoving your tongues down each other’s throats?'

'Yes, with words, you hypocrite.'

'So. Are you exclusive yet?'

'That's a bit of a jump, isn't it? From _did you talk,_ to _are you boyfriends?_ What if we weren't?'

'So you are?'

'Yes,' Harry says beside me, before shoving the bloody sausage back in his mouth.

The girls nearly squeak with joy, and I feel my own gut flutter at the sureness in his voice. _Boyfriends._ I don’t even know if I believe him.

'Are you going to tell everyone or is it a secret?' Lisa asks, her eyes flicking between us. Harry is still chewing, again, and he looks at me to answer.

'I think we'd like a little bit of time to settle into it before people know, if you can manage to keep it to yourselves?’ I say. ‘There's going to be opinions, and I'm not really feeling capable of dealing with them yet. So, yeah. It needs to be a secret for a while.'

Harry's chewing has slowed and he's looking at me like he's not sure what's going on. I meet his eye. This isn't something we've talked about yet. He swallows.

'What do you mean, there's going to be opinions?' he asks.

'I mean,' I say, playing with my potato. 'That everyone who knows you, or me, is going to have an opinion, and they're all going to assume they have the right to share it. Probably with us, and most definitely with each other. And, being that you're you and I'm me, likely one of them will share it with the media.'

'Oh,' he says, and I see the layers of realisation unfold within him as he slumps slightly, his eyes losing focus.

 

'Don't worry about it, Harry, you two have hardly been Auror-level discreet so far and no one's run a front page exclusive yet,' Chang soothes. 'I think if you can manage to keep your hands to yourselves this afternoon, you'll be fine once you're back in London.'

'I suppose,' he grumbles, and shoots me a glance. 'Sorry,' he says, so that only I hear him, letting his free hand fall into the space between us and reaching out for a moment and brushing my thigh. 'I forgot that might be a thing.'

'Hey,' I say, loud and clear, waiting til he raises his eyes to look at me. The bravery is coming from somewhere and I think it was his bold admission we’re now boyfriends. 'It'll be worth it.'

I'm being a total sap and I can practically hear the hearts sproinging out of Chang and Lisa's eyes, but he's had a rough enough time today and I don't want to add to it by not saying exactly what I want to. He nods, smiling at his food.

 

We finish our lunch in silence, the girls nursing cups of tea til the assigned meeting time rolls around. We move into the Operations tent as a group and I finally catch sight of the rest of our team, alive and well. Alphie gives me a smile that appears well-meaning but forced, and Bert tips an imaginary hat at me. He looks slightly smug and I wonder how much he's deduced without being told. 

 

It's a smaller group than before, just the people at the scene and on the clean-up team that's been put together, so we all fit around the long table. Robards is presiding, and the absence of the Operations Manager is noted by all, but especially me, and I can't help feeling a little bit pleased with myself. Parchment is shuffled around the head of the table, with Robards muttering to one of the Aurors beside him about something that's making him frown. There's another Auror beside that one, then Lisa, then Harry, then Bert and Alphie at the end. On my side of Robards is the PhD candidate and another Auror, then Cho and I. Overall, we're not out-numbered for once, if we claim the hot scholar. Ideally Robards stays neutral.

 

Most importantly, Harry is across from me and not at my side, so I should at least be able to concentrate. He looks good, but the effect is dulled by how much better he looked half an hour ago, flushed and dripping on the floor.

 

Cho leans back in her seat, keeping her eyes on Robards and whispering something to me I don't quite hear. I lean in, our heads close.

'What was that?'

'I said,' she whispers. 'That Harry is staring at you. He's making it really obvious there's something going on. I thought you were going to be discreet.'

'We are.'

'Well I resent not being able to gossip about you if he's just going to give it away by drooling on the table.'

I look over at him and she's not far wrong. He's watching us, intently. Too intently. I raise an eyebrow at him and tip my head up the table at Robards, who's just now clearing his throat to speak. He looks away for a second and I sit back, angling my chair toward the head of the table, determined to focus.

 

Robards introduces everyone again, and lays out the usual incident procedure, which I'd hope we all knew, but there's no sense in assuming. Maybe he's only doing it for the sake of the scholar, Maire Gen-something-unpronounceable. At least I caught part of her name this time instead of just staring at her tits like some sort of Neanderthal.

 

I glance across and Harry's not staring at her tits either — he's staring at me, again. His right hand is flat on the table, and he raises his index finger in a tiny, strangely adorable, wave. My expression must turn soft, because he blushes and that's adorable too. I still can't tell if I'm forgiven yet. Part of me wants to _Stupefy_ everyone else in the room and have him here on the table, but that's not only unprofessional, illegal and slightly perverse, I also don't know if he'd want that. I said I'd wait. Doesn't mean I'll stop thinking about doing unspeakable things to him though. Certainly not while he's being cute and all buttoned up like that in a three-piece suit. In fact… now that I'm up close and he's taken his scarf off, that tie looks uncomfortably familiar.

 

I filter back through my memories of last night, made hazy by time and gin and the dim blue light of his bedroom. Up against the wall, right by the window, pinned there by his hips, his calloused fingers tugging at the strip of green silk round his neck, then his collar, then back on me. In my memory, he grips my ribcage, pushing me into the swathes of ostentatious gold curtain fabric, and holds me there, his mouth on my neck, relentlessly teasing forth a thousand little bruises I'd had to vanish before I fell asleep. Before I got attached to them.

 

Later, after he'd lifted me up, teased me open and pounded me into the wall, he'd dropped to his knees. The green silk was still loose round his neck and he'd wrapped the long end around the base of my cock. He'd then gone on to then try and reach it with his lips as he swallowed me down. So, yes, the tie was familiar. The tight feeling in my pants is familiar. Him staring, unguarded, is getting that way too.

 

Robards calls on the scholar to talk about explosive curses, and I manage to gain back some control of my body's responses, despite her glorious accent. Once I'm done calming myself down, I have the presence of mind to notice there's a breeze in the tent. Or at least, a breeze skimming over my left hand where it rests on the table. A localised breeze, actually. I look sideways at Harry. He's waving his fingers again, but now he's concentrating on the table in front of me, and I realise that what I'm feeling is perfectly in time with his movements. He's using wandless magic on me, caressing me. In a meeting.

 

He hasn't noticed I've cottoned on to him, fixated as he is, so I turn  to sit properly at the table, casually push the sleeves of my jumper up to my elbows, exposing more skin. Flexing slightly, so the rigid tendons of my forearms pop and the muscle becomes slightly more defined. Two can play at his game of teasing. I stretch out my long fingers and drag them back across the wooden surface til they're loose fists. Warmth washes over my skin, tickling, wisps of intent skimming across my knuckles. I keep my eyes on Ms Gen-something, like I don't already know everything she's saying. 

 

Eventually the invisible fingers of his magic tire of my forearms and start to roam higher, pressing my jumper close. I turn my left arm over, palm up, fist still loose, curved just so. I offer it to him across the table with a look, an invitation, a glance at his mouth, then lower. My gaze bores through the table as I imagine him crawling to me and laying his cock down in my hand. An offering. In the background, Robards starts asking questions, so I turn my face, trying to look like I'm paying attention.

 

He asks me one at the exact same time Harry aims a wandless spell at my hand and suddenly I have a fist full of lube.

'So you reckon some of them are on climate triggers, Malfoy?'

'Uh, yes, Sir.'

'Want to walk us through why?'

_No._ Not right now. Not with sexual lubricant in my hand. I close my fist a little more and quickly draw it in and onto my lap, out of sight.

'It was negative one in the vaults when we went down first thing in the morning. In an hour it went up one and a half degrees. Once there had been six of us down there after another hour, it'd gone up another three. By the time Harry came down as well, the surface temperature had reached it's peak and I'm guessing that pushed the temperature up just enough to set it off.'

'If there were more, don't you think they would've gone off too?'

'No way to be sure, sir. Maybe not.'

Alphie cuts in then, and I use the distraction to vanish the lube from my palm. He starts off on a spiel of reasons, all accurate and valid, and I let him go for it. I have retaliation to attend to. 

 

I shoot a glare at Harry across the table, flick a first year spell at his throat, and watch as his tie tightens around his neck. It won't hurt him but it won't be comfortable. His mouth opens and I expect him to loosen the knot immediately but he doesn't, he just sits there, breathing carefully and staring mostly at the wooden tabletop. Occasionally he sends a glance up to me, and I notice as he flushes, as his eyes go dark, and his breathing becomes quicker, shallower, his fingers twitching. It looks like he's slowly choking, letting it happen, but there's an air of bliss about him and I wonder if this is what he was referring to earlier about people telling him what to do.

 

Alphie finishes up with his explanation and one of the Aurors, the one on Robards' right hand side, lays out a potential plan for the vaults. I try and listen, but Harry is distracting, sitting there happily being slightly strangled. I aim carefully under the table and loosen the knot. His gaze snaps up and looks simultaneously relieved and annoyed. His hand goes to his throat, and he fingers the silk knot, petting it, almost.

 

I'm not expecting it when he drops his hand back into his lap and I feel his magic wash over my crotch and straight through the fabric to leave a thick smear of lube along the length of my cock. Lord almighty, I literally quiver. My muscles tense and I bite my tongue not to gasp out loud. Thank fuck Cho isn't looking in my direction, and Bert doesn't give a shit. I try and force myself to look angry or something, instead of dumbstruck and slack-jawed and aroused, obviously failing because he looks at me and fucking smiles. Bastard.

 

I point my wand at him under the table and concentrate on a spell I know well enough to do silent, drunk and in the dark. His eyes widen and he physically recoils as it hits him, no doubt a little overwhelmed by the simultaneous sensations of being emptied, lubricated and stretched. I play to win, and that particular charm has always been a winner before. I raise an eyebrow at him, a challenge. He's not going to be able to beat that.

 

Robards is talking again, laying out a timeline, and I see Chang conscientiously noting it all down. I pay dutiful attention for all of thirty seconds before my wand is ripped from my grasp under the table and something tightens around my ankles. Only a year of living with a psychopath could've prepared me enough to not physically react to being disarmed, and only doing my compulsory hand-to-hand combat training with Harry could've prepared me for being spontaneously _Incarceroused_. Regardless, my feelings about the matter are swift and intense and I feel my cock twitch, and thicken and I wish he didn't know me so well. I should never have told him, a handful of weeks ago, in a particularly lusty moment, that I was open to being tied to things, not after everything that never happened all those years ago.

 

The conversation around the table turns to tea breaks and rest periods and people start to stand up and move out. Lisa and Cho give us a matching pair of indulgent looks and leave together, Alphie and Bert on their tails. The Aurors and the scholar move off in a loose clump toward the door and soon it's just Harry and Robards and I around the table. I can't imagine what I'll do if Harry leaves me here, or if Robards asks for a moment to talk to him alone. I've tried undoing his bindings by hand before and it's impossible and annoying. (And impressive and sexy and scary).

 

Robards is standing over him, asking something about a fan and ice, and Harry just answers him, casually toying with _my_ wand and acting for all the world like there's nothing going on. Meanwhile, I have to sit here, watching and waiting, and hoping no one wonders too much about why I haven't followed them, since I can't actually get up. Cho and Lisa, at least, seem perfectly happy to bugger off without us. The last couple of people are still standing by the door, one Auror and the hot scholar, and if there was a doorframe on this tent I swear the guy would be leaning against trying to look cool. As it is, he just looks awkward and I wonder what line he's using to chat her up. It doesn't seem to be working.

 

I try and calm myself down, just in case, but the pressure of the restraints and the palpable possibility of getting caught is ever-present in my mind. Not to mention the fact that if Harry's covertly lubing up my cock, does it mean he's ready to play with it again? Does it mean we're okay again?

 

After what seems far longer than necessary spent chatting about cooling, especially considering what the temperature will do naturally overnight, Robards looks up and notices I'm still there. He looks like he's about to say something when Harry cuts in.

'Malfoy,' he says, like he's grateful I've stuck around to wait for him to notice me. 'I saw something today I wanted to ask you about. Have you got a minute or are you tied up right now?' The right hand corner of his mouth ticks up, the side Robards can't see from his vantage point, and I feel myself scowl in response.

'You have exactly one minute,' I tell him. 

Robards gives me an odd look, but reads the room well and offers Harry a _"Thanks, Potter"_ before heading for the door. Testament to his ability to gauge awkward personal situations, he pushes his thirsty Auror out through the flap ahead of him and away from the young woman he was trying fruitlessly to impress.

'What I want to do to you is going to take more than a minute,' Harry says, standing up.

'Are you going to feed me two-minute noodles?'

'Are you going to be a smart-arse?'

'What do you think?'

Harry smirks and lifts his knee onto the table, spreading his hands wide either side. Is he…?

'I think you're going to be the death of me,' he says, and yes, he is climbing up onto the table. Straight out of my fantasy, he crawls across to me on all fours, and any previous aversion to people on tables is out the window. I've always associated it with strippers and bordello girls, or overly dramatic gay men in feather boas in some hopelessly desperate nightclub. But Harry, and his tight little waistcoat, and his tie (oh lord) still sporting specks of my cum from last night, and that _look_ in his eye… Well. It's different to how I imagined. It's better. 

 

He stops, kneeling between my open arms, and spreads his thighs a little. 'Hey,' he says. Like it's perfectly normal to crawl across something instead of walking five steps around it.

'I can't believe you're on a table.'

'I could get off if you want?' he smirks.

'As long as you also plan to _undo_ me.'

'Soon,' he says, and reaches forward, placing a hand on my shoulder and scrunching the soft wool into his fist. He pulls at me, dropping his head down and tilting til he finds my mouth. 

 

I don't know what to do. My cock is hard and wet and yet I'm fully clothed and tied to a chair. I don't know if this is him saying we're okay, or if he's just giving in to his baser urges and we'll be back to awkward touches as soon as he draws the line somewhere arbitrary. I don't know if I'm about to get laid, or get left here to suffer, or get fired because no one's sealed the door.

'Harry,' I say, pulling away. 'Anyone could walk in. We should stop.'

He still has my wand in his other hand, and he points it at the door, growling out his impatience (or annoyance). I don't recognise the spell he uses but it sounds serious and convoluted, or maybe it's two back to back. 

'Happy?' he asks.

'Mostly just confused what's happening,' I whisper, not wanting it too sound harsh, or like I'm not enjoying it anyway, despite the confusion.

'I assumed you wanted something in particular,' he says. 'Given your choice of charmwork. And your earlier request for a safe word.'

'I also asked for clear boundaries.'

'The boundary,' he says, kissing me again. 'Is _fuck me here on this table._ Please.'

'You also said you needed time and I don't want to rush this if it's going to ultimately put you off.'

'I've had an hour.'

'That was all the time you needed?'

'You look really nice in that jumper,' he shrugs. 'And you said you liked me.'

'So now you're just going to go right ahead and leap on my cock and the first available opportunity?'

'We've wasted plenty of time already, _not_ doing that.'

I don't actually want to talk him out of this, he seems quite sure in his decision. Pushing him away when he's ready and willing and no doubt sensitive is a horrible idea. Plus, he looks fucking _edible_ in a suit, and I've been dying to bend him over something for a long time.

'Are you going to untie me at least?' I ask.

'I wasn't planning on it.'

'Brat.' I pull myself to standing with the help of the table, and he rises up onto his knees to meet me. 'Sit down,' I growl.

 

As he works at unfolding himself, I cast an eye at the tent flaps, and they're still sealed tight, safe. I undo my trousers, being careful to not put any pressure on the front of them in case the lube soaks through. It's warm still, and slippery-wet.

'How do you want me?' he asks, now sitting with his arse on the table and his legs dangling over the side, knees either side of my hips. He's undone his flies and he's not wearing pants — neither of us are after our impromptu shower. The swollen length of his cock is sitting flat against his abdomen, flushed and tight.

I consider doing as I intended and bending him over the surface of the table, but I want to watch him come and I won't get to if I do that. I could put him on his back, I suppose, hold his hips up and have my way with him like that. It seems passive though, and that's never been him. Despite wanting for months to fuck him — _hard —_ it was never to dominate him completely or crush his spirit. I just wanted to meet him halfway.

 

I find my seat again. I smile. 'Come sit on my lap,' I say.

 

 


End file.
